[Good evening. from the studios of KBBF, the first bilingual community radio station in the United States, this is your host, Nora Villanueva, welcoming you to this edition of “Classical Tones,” your program of classical music “with a Latin connection.” Every week at this time we explore the musical culture of Spain and Latin America.]

Let’s start off the program with music from Spain. The Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492 and from Portugal in 1506. Nevertheless, Sephardic song saw an extraordinary expansion before their expulsion. The Romancero, which gathers together Spanish romances, contains numerous archaic texts whose melodies are rich and varied. Here are two examples called “Paxarico tu te llamas” and “La Reina xerifa mora”. The soprano is Montserrat Figueras with Hespèrion XX directed by Jordi Savall.

The Spanish conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos was born with the last name of “Frühbeck”, but to emphasize his Spanish identity, he later changed his professional name by adding “de Burgos”, from his hometown, Burgos in Castile. Like him, the Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz felt a strong connection to his country and much of his music has a nationalist character. One example was his “Spanish Rhapsody,” which was originally written for piano but after Albeniz’ death it was orchestrated by Cristóbal Halffter, and that’s the version we’ll hear now, with pianist Alicia de Larrocha and the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos.

You are listening to Classical Tones, the program of classical music “with a Latin connection” from the studios of KBBF in Santa Rosa, California. We just heard the Spanish Rhapsody by Isaac Albéniz performed by Alicia de Larrocha at the piano accompanied by the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos.

The Italian composer Domenico Zipoli lived the final 10 years of his life in South America. Here’s a piece he wrote just before he left for the New World. It’s from the first volume of a collection of keyboard music published in 1716 and is called “Elevazione”. We’ll hear a rendition by the Consort of London under the baton of Robert Haydon Clark.

Arturo Márquez was born in Sonora, Mexico in 1950. When he was a teenager the family moved to Los Angeles where he started writing music when he was 16. He later attended the Mexican Music Conservatory, studied composition in Paris, and earned a graduate degree in composition from the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia. Among his many compositions he wrote a series of Danzones (which is a type of popular dance) based on the music of Cuba and the Veracruz region of Mexico . Danzón number 2, which debuted in 1994, was commissioned by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). We’ll hear an performance by the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas under the baton of Alondra de la Parra.

Now we have a piece by Mozart Carmargo Guàrnieri. In 1942, the famous American composer Aaron Copland had this to say about the young Brazilian composer: “The thing that attracts one most in Guarnieri’s music is its warmth and imagination, which are touched by a sensibility that is profoundly Brazilian. At its finest his is the fresh and racy music of a ‘new continent.'” This piece is called “Dansa Brasileira” and is performed by the Boston Pops Orchestra under the baton of Keith Lockhart.

21:53 2:13 Mozart Camargo Guàrnieri (1907-1994) Dansa Brasileira

Boston Pops Orchestra, Keith Lockhart

Dansa Brasileira, by Mozart Camargo Guàrnieri was performed by the Boston Pops Orchestra conducted by Keith Lockhart.

Toward the end of the 18th century, musical instruments were evolving toward those characteristics we know today. The guitar was transformed by three important innovations. First, the five double strings of the baroque guitar were discarded in favor of single strings. Second, another string was added to the bass register. Finally, the system of tablature notation the guitar had inherited for some 300 years was dispensed with and single-staff notation adopted, which further integrated the instrument into conventional performing practices. It merely remained to be seen what composer or performer would appear on the horizon to demonstrate in full the potential expressiveness of the guitar in its newly evolved state. The Spaniard Fernando Sor, born in Barcelona in 1778, was both a virtuoso and celebrated composer for the instrument. We’ll hear his “Fantasie” opus 30 performed by Julian Bream.

Adolfo de Quesada, Count of San Rafael de Luyanó, born in Madrid in 1830, is someone to bear in mind when considering the history of advanced pianistic romanticism. Despite all the theories that consider Spanish romantic piano to be far from the advances of Chopin, Quesada had occasion to learn his technique in Cuba, where he began his musical training, and where he took classes from Fontana, an authentic heir of the great Polish musician. Another of his teachers was Louis Moreau Gottachalk, who was extremely famous at the time. This “Serenade, opus 28” is dedicated to José María Esperanza y Sola, a very important personality in the musical life of Madrid, and which almost seems to presage the first salon works of Isaac Albéniz. The pianist on this recording is Ana Vega-Toscano.

Jesús María Sanromá was a Puerto Rican pianist who was born in 1902 and died on October 12, 1984. He is generally considered one of the most important pianists of the 20th century. He was friends with many of the leading musicians of his time, including the American composer George Gershwin and the well-loved conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, Arthur Fiedler. I was able to find a CD with a digitally-remastered copy of their 1930’s-era recording of Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F. The audio quality is not up to modern standards, but I think you can still hear the excitement of Sanromá’s interpretation.

And so we end this edition of Classical Tones with the Concerto in F by George Gershwin performed by Jesús María Sanromá at the piano accompanied by the Boston Pops Orchestra conducted by Arthur Fiedler.

[I want to thank you for tuning in to “Classical Tones”, the classical music show from the studios of KBBF. We’re here every week with two hours of the best music and musicians from Spain and Latin America. This is your host Nora Villanueva, hoping to be with you again next week.]